The 2012 edition of NFPA 99 has been published.

EMGS, Inc. has developed an online two-hour course and exam to cover the changes made from the 2005 to the 2012 edition.

If you are interested in purchasing the book or registering for the course, please contact Caroline Darden at 770-459-5920.

One of the most common complaints from surgeons in operating rooms is, “There is not enough suction present.” Most of the time this isn’t the fault of the central vacuum system itself, but rather the failure to maintain the suction canisters and the lines associated with them. When canisters are not emptied in a timely manner, the vacuum lines can become occluded with debris.

EMGS, Inc. offers vacuum line cleaning services for this problem. Please contact us today for more information. 770-459-5920.

Earlier this year EMGS was given the privilege of having the opportunity to travel overseas to Bagram Air Field near Kabul, Afghanistan to inspect the medical gas System at SSG Heathe N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital.  We have done many jobs on military bases here in the United States, but being able to go to a forward operating base was truly an experience that I will never forget, and one that I am truly grateful for.

This facility obviously has many hurdles that typical hospitals would never even imagine having to overcome due to its location and the type of patients it serves, but   I want to focus on two of them: the ability to produce and store oxygen in a remote location, and the ability to maintain a vacuum system in the environment and climate in which the facility is located.

Craig Joint Theater Hospital (CJTH) is located approximately 50 mile from Kabul, Afghanistan. There are no oxygen production facilities anywhere near here, and in order to maintain a reliable oxygen system to serve the facility they had to utilize an oxygen generation system. Essentially, they take air and filter out the nitrogen and other elements in order to increase the oxygen content of the gas. As they compress the gas it is pushed through filters increasing the percentage of oxygen. The oxygen content would top out between 91-93% as opposed to the typical 99.5-99.9% coming off of Oxygen bulk tanks here in the States.  In order to have a back up system the facility would use this gas to fill standard “H” cylinders and hook them up to emergency headers. As you can imagine this system is quite large and requires a tremendous amount of energy to function.

The facility also has a constant fight to maintain the vacuum pump systems. The systems face two obstacles at all times. The fine dust and dirt in the area that the hospital is located, and the fact that the hospital is located nearly 5000 ft. above sea level.  The pumps themselves required maintenance at more regular intervals than typical systems due to the dust, and there is a higher stress load on the pumps because of the altitude.  At close to 5000 ft. above sea level the correction factor for the vacuum load is 20% more than a system at sea level.

The facility was designed with these challenges and many others in mind. The typical medical gas system has redundancies built in to ensure that a medical gas is never totally lost, but CJTH takes this to another level. The facility has two sets of source equipment with each one serving half of the hospital. They have an intricate system in which they can feed the entire facility from either set of source equipment.

With all of the additional obstacles that a facility like this one faces it was clear to see that the prevention of a loss of medical gas to the patient was something that was of high priority.

Did you know that we offer online medical gas reporting for our customers? This service is available to all of our customers by requesting a secure login. Benefits include easy and quick viewing of reports, testing history, and searchable fields that quickly locate a specific room or piece of equipment to its’ activity.  All service calls, quotes, reports, and any other transaction that has occurred between EMGS and a facility is recorded within this online system for seamless record keeping.

Contact us today to request a demo and/or login! 770-459-5920.

As part of the ASSE 6010 Medical Gas Installer Course, proper brazing procedures are taught.

It is rare that an individual will braze a successful horizontal and vertical coupon on the first try.  Reasons for failure include:

-Improper sequence of feeding the rod into the coupling

– Improper amount of heat to cause the melted rod material to flow to the center of the coupling by capillary action, or the proper amount of heat in the wrong place on the coupling (i.e. the edge of the coupling is hotter than the center of the coupling).

– Improper position of the rod while feeding it into the coupling.

– Improper position of the torch while heating the coupling/piping assembly and while feeding the rod into the edge of the coupling.

– Improper amount of rod being fed into the edge of the coupling (not enough rod to fill the coupling).

-Improper amount of time spent doing the coupling.

We recommend practicing the procedure prior to attending an exam session. We offer a DVD of the brazing procedure, available in English or Spanish, for $20.00 plus applicable taxes and shipping costs. We can send a DVD to you at anytime.

EMGS has an almost perfect pass rate for students taking the practical brazing exam, and this is directly related to our method.  Please contact us at 770-459-5920 if you wish to become certified to install medical gas, or would like to order a DVD on the correct brazing procedure.